Ticket accepting machines in particular for public transit system

ABSTRACT

Tickets accepting machines arranged to curtail presently known ways of fraudulously using admission tickets, including transfers, to gain access into a public transit system. The tickets accepting machines are each provided with a ticket multilating device whereby any ticket issuing from the machine, either legally or illegally, is visibly mutilated and improper for re-use in a tickets accepting machine of at least the same type. The mutilating device includes a rotary cutter arranged to severe a portion of each ticket inserted into the machine.

United States Patent [191 Bali TICKET ACCEPTING MACHINES IN PARTICULAR FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEM [451 Dec. 25, 1973 3,651,728 3/1972 Young 83/503 X Primary Examiner-Robert B. Reeves Assistant Examiner-Joseph .l. Rolla Attorney-Pierre Lesperance [57] ABSTRACT Tickets accepting machines arranged to curtail presently known ways of fraudulously using admission tickets, including transfers, to gain access into a public transit system. The tickets accepting machines are each provided with a ticket multilating device whereby any ticket issuing from the machine, either legally or illegally, is visibly mutilated and improper for re-use in a tickets accepting machine of at least the same type. The mutilating device includes a rotary cutter arranged to severe a portion of each ticket inserted into the machine.

1 Claim, 12 Drawing Figures PAIENTED 3.780.844

4 FIG] TICKET ACCEPTING MACHINES IN PARTICULAR FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEM This invention relates to tickets accepting machines, and more particularly, to a tickets accepting machine having an anti-fraud device and adapted for use in a public transit system, such as a metro and bus system, and for other uses.

In the metro and bus systems, like the one in Montreal, there has not yet been found satisfactory procedure and equipment to completely avoid illegal admission and use of tickets. In fact it is now estimated that thousands of dollars are lost every year due to persons having found ways of abusing the limitations of the equipment now used to control the admission of passengers.

The applicant noted that at least two more and more widespread ways of illegally using admission tickets for gaining access to a metro and bus system like the one in Montreal, may be substantially curtailed by a simple modification to existing tickets accepting machines. As will be appreciated by at least one skilled in the art, the principle of the invention is also applicable to tickets accepting machines used other than in connection with a public transit system.

The term tickets as used in the specification and the claims is meant to also encompass the transfers which are in fact transfer tickets.

According to the principle of the invention, the tickets accepting machines are each provided with a mutilating device such that any ticket and transfer that legally or illegally issues from the machines is visibly mutilated and improper for re-use in a tickets accepting machine, at least of the same type.

It is therefore a general object of the invention to provide tickets handling equipment and in particular tickets accepting machines which are less susceptible to being fouled to gain illegal admission, such as in connection with a public transit system.

It is a more specific object of the invention to provide tickets accepting machines with a mutilating device such that all tickets issuing from one of said tickets accepting machine is visibly mutilated and improper for re-use in a tickets accepting machine at least of the same type.

The invention will now be described in details with reference to a preferred embodiment which is illustrated, by way of example only in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. I is a side elevation view of a tickets accepting mechanism according to the invention showing a ticket deflector in externally rejecting position.

FIG. 2 is a partial view of FIG. 1 showing the ticket deflector in internally retaining position.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional plan view as seen along line 33 in FIG. 2.

' FIGS. 4 and 4a are cross-sectional views as seen along line 4-4 in FIG. 3 showing the ticket deflector in internally retaining and externally rejecting positions respectively.

FIGS. 5, 6 and 7 are side, end, and perspective views respectively of a deflector for a severed ticket portion.

FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view as seen along line 88 in FIG. 1.

FIG. 9 is a partial side view of a rotary cutter forming part of the invention.

FIG. 10 is a perspective view of a roller arranged to 2 be operatively associated to the rotary cutter of FIG. 9.

FIG. 1 1 is a similar view as FIG. 8 showing a difierent cutter arrangement.

The illustrated embodiment of the invention includes two cooperatively engaging narrow endless belts l supported at their ends by gears adjacent the rollers 2, 3, 4 and 5 and held taut and in firm engagement by idler pulleys 6 and 7, the latter being carried by levers 8 and biased by springs 9. As can best be seen in FIGS. 8 and 9, the endless conveyor belts l are provided with teeth 10 on the inner side thereof and they engage the corresponding gears, such as gear 1 1 fixed to the shaft 12 for rotation with the latter in association with the roller 5.

The tickets accepting machine according to the invention is conceived and arranged to receive an admission ticket having a magnetic identification feature, not shown, and an admission ticket having punched out identification features 13, like the general metro and bus admission ticket and the bus transfer ticket 14 respectively, that are presently used by the metro and bus system of Montreal.

The tickets accepting machine is provided with a slot or any suitable aperture to present a ticket to the internal accepting mechanism thereof. Aticket inserted into the machine is received by the conveyor belts l at the nip defined by the rollers 2 and 3 as indicated by the arrow 15 to travel from right to left as seen in FIG. 1. A magnetic detector head 16 of any suitable type, such as is now used in the art, is suitably arranged to detect if any ticket travelling as above under the conveying action of the belts 1 is provided with the valid magnetic identification feature. If the magnetic head 16 finds the received ticket valid, the tumstile or admission gate, not shown, is released to let the person through. The circuitry, tumstile or gate, and related mechanisms to open the latter are known, do not form part of the invention, and are therefore not illustrated herein. Similarly, an optical head or detector 17 is arranged to detect if a ticket bears the appropriate valid perforations 13 and if so, causes opening of the tumstile or gate.

A ticket rejecting assembly 18 is mounted at the downward end of the conveyor defined by the endless belts 1 and includes a deflector l9 pivotally supported by a pin 20 transversely carried by a pair of mounting plates 21. A suitable linkage including a pair of links 22 and 23 is pivotally connected to cause pivoting of the ticket deflector 19 between an internal deflecting position as shown in FIGS. 2 and 4 and an external rejecting position as shown in FIGS. 1 and 4a. A spring 24 is provided to bias the links 22 and 23 into the latter external rejecting position into which, the received ticket is deflected and guided toward a rejecting opening, not shown, in the housing of the machine. When a received ticket is internally deflected by the deflector 19 it follows the path indicated by the arrow 25 and passes between the belt 1 and roller 4 and an idler roller 26. When on the contrary a ticket is externally rejected by the deflector 19, the ticket is caused to follow the guiding surface 27 in the direction of the arrow 28 and to become accessible outside the machine. An idler roller 29 is transversely supported by the mounting plates 21 and is arranged to guide the received ticket against the deflector 19.

According to one embodiment of the invention, a rotary cutter 30 is rotatably mounted to extend intothe path of the received ticket, as best shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 8 and is arranged to mutilate the received ticket by longitudinally severing a portion thereof. The roller 5 is provided with a pair of circular peripheral grooves 31 symmetrically arranged relative to the ends thereof such that the roller 5 may be inserted endwise with any end first and one of the two grooves will register with the rotary cutter and allow the latter to penetrate edgewise therein to provide the cutting action. The cutter 30 is supported by one free end of two parallel elbow shape levers 32 which are pivoted by a transverse pin 33 and biased by a spring 34 such that the cutter engages into the corresponding groove 31.

As best shown in FIG. 8, the cutter 30 is provided with a sleeve hub portion 35 and is rotatably mounted relative to a transverse pin 36 by a ball bearing 37 whose outer race is fixed to the sleeve hub portion 35 for rotation of the cutter therewith. Another ball bearing 38 is journalled at the other end of the transverse pin 36. The outer race of the ball bearing 38 and the sleeve hub portion 35 are arranged to form rollable support for the ticket undergoing mutilation or cutting.

In a second embodiment illustrated in FIG. 11, the mutilating device is still a rotary cutter but this time forming an annular cutter 39 fixed around the roller 5 for rotation therewith. The annular cutter 39 is arranged to engage between two of three similar ball bearings 40 whose outer race rollably engage and support the ticket undergoing cutting. A transverse pin 41 supports the bearings 40 and is carried by a free end of a pair of levers 32 pivoted by a pin 33 and biased by a spring 34, similarly as for the first embodiment.

For both embodiments, a deflector 42 is fixed against one side of a mounting plate 21 and arranged to internally deflect the abovementioned severed portion of the received ticket whereby any ticket that is rejected is visibly mutilated and improper for re-use in a tickets receiving machine at least of the same type.

lt must be appreciated that the admission tickets which could under certain, circumstances be illegally rejected by the now existing tickets accepting machine will, with the present machine, issue in a visibly mutilated form which is improper for re-use.

The deflector 42 is fixed and therefore always deflects the severed portion internally for retention into the machine while the pivoted ticket deflector is coupled to the magnetic head or detector 16 such that internal deflection will be produced only upon detection of a ticket having the proper or valid identification feature. When a magnetic ticket is found invalid or a nonmagnetic ticket such as a bus transfer ticket is used, the same will be rejected externally such that the user of the public transit system will have to use its'rejected bus transfer ticket instead of a freshly acquired metro transfer.

Each tickets accepting machine will be connected to a metro transfer emitting machine such that the latter will be allowed to emit a transfer only upon detection of a valid magnetic ticket by the detector 16. It will be readily understood that only simple electrical connections are required to so control a transfer emitting machine and no detail description is required.

As a result, the holder of a valid bus transfer will have to use his valid and externally rejected transfer ticket if he wants to transfer from the metro to a bus without paying an extra fare.

it must be appreciated that the above procedure is particularly adapted for implementation into a public transit system using a general admission ticket and a bus transfer ticket system as in Montreal but, is definitely of broader applicability than this and can be used any place where a tickets accepting machine is used to control admission to any place.

It is worth also noting that the mutilation may be done other than by cutting off or severing a portion of the received ticket. For instance, the cutter 30 or 39 could be replaced by a perforating member or damaging tool such as to cause a readily discernable mutilation which renders the ticket improper for re-use in a ticket accepting machine at least of the same type.

The specific frauds which the invention is adapted to curtail have not been explicitly defined herein to avoid more persons making illegal use thereof.

I claim:

1. In a tickets accepting machine of the type including an internal path for a received ticket and ticket validity detector means arranged adjacent said internal path and constructed and arranged to selectively accept or refuse the received ticket, an anti-fraud assembly comprising tickets cutting means positioned adjacent said internal path to engage every received ticket travelling along said internal path and cut the same, whereby the cut ticket is visibly mutilated and improper for re-use in a tickets accepting machine at least of said above type, ticket rejector means arranged downward relative to said internal path, and operatively connected to said ticket validity detector means to selectively reject a cut ticket in response to activation by said ticket validity detector means, a conveyor belt to transport said received ticket along said internal path, said cutting means including a rotary cutter extending into said internal path and aligned lengthwise thereof to completely severe a portion of said received ticket, a roller supporting said conveyor belt and provided with a circular peripheral groove, said rotary cutter extending edgewise into said groove to severe said received ticket upon travel of the latter against said roller, a pair of parallel levers pivotally mounted adjacent said roller about an axis extending parallel to the latter, a pivot joining the free end portions of said parallel levers, said rotary cutter being rotatably mounted on said pivot, ball bearings having outer races positioned on opposite sides of said rotarycutter and arranged to support the ticket undergoing cutting in engagement against said roller, and a spring connected to said parallel levers and arranged to bias said cutter towards engagement into the groove.

i il 

1. In a tickets accepting machine of the type including an internal path for a received ticket and ticket validity detector means arranged adjacent said internal path and constructed and arranged to selectively accept or refuse the received ticket, an anti-fraud assembly comprising tickets cutting means positioned adjacent said internal path to engage every received ticket travelling along said internal path and cut the same, whereby the cut ticket is visibly mutilated and improper for re-use in a tickets accepting machine at least of said above type, ticket rejector means arranged downward relative to said internal path, and operatively connected to said ticket validity detector means to selectively reject a cut ticket in response to activation by said ticket validity detector means, a conveyor belt to transport said received ticket along said internal path, said cutting means including a rotary cutter extending into said internal path and aligned lengthwise thereof to completely severe a portion of said received ticket, a roller supporting said conveyor belt and provided with a circular peripheral groove, said rotary cutter extending edgewise into said groove to severe said received ticket upon travel of the latter against said roller, a pair of parallel levers pivotally mounted adjacent said roller about an axis extending parallel to the latter, a pivot joining the free end portions of said parallel levers, said rotary cutter being rotatably mounted on said pivot, ball bearings having outer races positioned on opposite sides of said rotary cutter and arranged to support the ticket undergoing cutting in engagement against said roller, and a spring connected to said parallel levers and arranged to bias said cutter towards engagement into the groove. 